Taiwan's economic growth outpaces China for the first time in 30 years

In the latest revelation, Taiwan has become Asia’s top-performing economy for 2020 and unexpectedly outgrew China for the first time in three decades. As the global demand for Taiwan’s tech exports outweighed the hit from the COVID-19 pandemic, the island’s economy grew 2.98% in 2020 compared to 2019. The information was revealed by the advance estimates of Taiwan’s statistics office showed on Friday.

As per reports, it beat the 2.58 per cent forecast by its central bank and edged out Vietnam’s 2.9 per cent growth even though some statistics had predicted that Vietnam would be Asia’s fastest-growing economy last year. Angela Hsieh, an economist at British bank Barclays, wrote in a Friday report after Taiwan released the numbers, “2020 has been a record year for Taiwan, and we expect the star to continue shining.”

Taiwan’s strength in exports in the second half of 2020, particularly of semiconductors and helped the economy to “easily offset” other drugs from the COVID-19 pandemic, said Hsieh. In the report, the economics raised her forecast for Taiwan’s 2021 growth by 1.2 per cent points to 5.2 per cent which is much greater than the official projection of 3.83 per cent. 

Even Taiwan’s expansion last year was also higher than China’s growth for the entire year of 2.3 per cent in 2020. Taiwan had last outgrown mainland’s economy 30 years ago, in 1990 when its 5.5 per cent growth surpassed China’s 3.9 per cent, as per official data of both sides.

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China Warns Taiwan 'independence Means War'

Taiwan's historic economic showdown is might irk Chian that considers the island as its own territory. In the latest war of words between the long-lasting China-Taiwan feud after Beijing toughened its military activities near the island, the mainland on January 28 warned Taipei that “independence means war”. China has claimed Taiwan as its own territory and has often threatened using the military. The Chinese government believes that Taiwan’s democratically-elected government is moving the island towards the declaration of formal independence even though Taiwanese President Tsi Ing-wen has repeatedly claimed that the island is an independent country called the Republic of China. 

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